


why do you see right through me?

by yvette_cigarette



Category: Arctic Monkeys, Last Shadow Puppets
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Drug Addiction, Humbug Hair, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Recovery, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23832859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yvette_cigarette/pseuds/yvette_cigarette
Summary: ~He kind of hates this. Nearly every line of dialog in this life which feels more like a buffer between now and the next time he fucks up.~
Relationships: Miles Kane/Alex Turner
Comments: 14
Kudos: 25





	why do you see right through me?

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the tags for an potential triggers, ily be safe. This ain't sunshine and rainbows, lads. 
> 
> I imagined a humbug alex and eycte miles but you can pair which ever eras you prefer :)))) Alex is 19/20 here, Miles is older. 
> 
> Enjoy! I certainly did ;)

The artist, in all their absent mystery, has certainly captured the likeness. 

Though, in all honesty, Alex isn’t entirely sure which Beatle he’s gazing up at. It’s certainly one of them. The bowl cut does nothing to steer his hunch in any direction. His eyes outline the sharp lapels and shoulders which slant idly. He eyes the vomiting guitar in the musician’s hold, with a drooled: _I get by with a little help from my friends._ Letting the irony of his current task sink in. 

Alex is spacing further out of himself and into the purple and onyx spray-paint’s scheme when he feels a hand on his shoulder. 

Suddenly he realises he’s been living without sound again, which used to be startling but now just irritates his focus. Alex gathers he’s missed a couple hollers of his name when their supervisor - Richard? - looks at him expectantly, a grounding hand still over his shoulder. The older lad points furrowed brows down at him with concern. 

Alex smiles blankly, silently nodding his way out of the situation. Pulling his hood over his head, he dips his paint roller into a perfectly obliviating white, scrolling it over the tray before he drags the thing down John or Paul’s please-please-me face. 

The morning tugs itself into an endless roleplay as community service hours often did, but when the hands on his wrist-watch slap midday he’s out of there; checking out by way of Richard’s clipboard and gracefully dodging any attempts to connect. 

He’s halfway home when his chest at last lightens; he crosses the zebra stripes to the beat of music bleeding out of his earphones, smiling under his hood when he spots rain-prophesying grey growling over the city.

He feels mostly horrible still. He thinks harshly of the alleyways of graffiti he and his sullen group of recovering street-cats had spent the morning painting over. Much like the last few weeks, scrubbing artistic expression or whatever the fuck squeaky clean, it just feels wrong - like he’s covering footprints left for someone to find. 

He reaches his complex and then eventually his front door, where he jams the key into the lock, his hands and face feeling numb. 

Locking the door behind him, despite the reputable neighbourhood, Alex toes off his shoes and melts out of his hoodie, giving into the allure of his doughy sofa. 

The lad flings himself to the couch, sighing as he blinks unseeingly up at the ceiling.

Internally, Alex plays and replays his barely soothing mantras of: _‘it’s just just a few more months, then you’re done,’_ and the famous, _‘you can do this’_. 

But really, what _would_ Alex do once his responsibilities weren’t out to get him anymore? When the court deemed him pardoned and shoved him back into individuality. He could fantasise about it for hours - pitched to the gutter right where his mind is. It only seems right that his thoughts and his body are in the same place. 

He groans on that, and squeezes up his face, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. He ends up passing out, sleeping like the dead until his phone bleats an hour later. 

He’s late for his probation officer. Marvelous.

**

The bus ride to the district office sucks road-markings under the wheels and turns the streets to a blur. Alex distantly wants to shove his earphones in and look like he doesn’t care, but he needs to listen out for the name of his stop. 

**

Miles Kane, the beanstalk never seen without his loud ties and million-watt smile, was Alex’ Probation Officer.

Alex’ sessions with Miles clock in late Friday afternoons. 2PM to 3PM. But Miles doesn’t end there. No, the lad couldn’t end there if Alex attempted spiritually banishing him from his mind. It’s like a curse, the way the Wirral-plucked lad orbits Alex’ every thought Friday from Friday, but it’s a favourable curse. 

Alex was hopelessly smitten. 

Miles was _impossible_ to untangle from Alex’ mind, rooted like a brilliant spiral reminding him of the educated future - the clean, respectable sight he could have made had he chosen differently in life. But moreover, Miles was just... sunshine. It was probably what made him so good at his job. Sunshine found most things. 

The waiting room smells like an attempt to disinfect felony, which Alex wants to applaud them for, but really it just reminds him of the dentist appointments of his youth. 

As it turns out, he’s pretty early - a habit his mother had engraved, one of the few things that had stuck. He asks the set of tortoise-frame glasses at the reception desk where the bathrooms are, and only gets lost once on the way. 

The stalls are all empty and it looks so strange to be in a clean, undamaged bathroom with no trace of bad ideas cut into powdery lines along the counter, no hint of smoky tang or an epiphany staring back at him in the mirror.

Well, the latter isn’t all true. He still feels he looks out of place in this pearly reflection. Alex’ eyes never did seem to lose that dopey, bambi-like, serotonin-fed quality, his eye circles never really did perfect in pigment. His lips still pout like he’s been through something terrible and he still blushes like a teenager when he imagines Miles looking at him during these sessions and wondering, I wonder if he tastes as sad as he looks. 

Bloody hell he could use a cigarette. 

He forgoes the cigarette because he’s eating up the minutes reminiscing about his old face. He pisses and washes his hands before making it back to the waiting room, where Miles nods to him from the front desk, leaning there so perfectly in his wake of sunshine. How can he just stand there and look so beautiful? It’s fucking insane.

Taking the usual seat in front of Miles’ desk, Alex’ teeth gnaw at his nail bed like it’s the very derailing addiction which led him to Miles Kane. The thought has him squeezing his eyes.

Crossing an ankle over his knee, Alex’ eyes crawl over Miles’ office like he hasn’t spent the last month mumbling his way through check ups. 

“An’ ‘ow are yeh, Alex?” Miles sighs pleasantly. Alex always hears Miles: it’s like where other people’s voices sound submerged in water, Miles’ words graze his senses like a gentle set of knuckles. 

“Er, alreyt.” He’d pissed in a cup prior to the waiting room so he’s just dandy. 

Miles' office is nice enough, dusty-grey walls which might depress one but only remind Alex of the skies back home. 

“Joost _alreyt?”_ Miles echoes, slipping into his spot across Alex, his desk between them. Alex loves when he does that - converts Alex’ mumblings, hears them and repeats, turns them into a pentameter fit for Sappho. God, he was fucked. 

He lifts a shoulder non-committedly, fighting off the urge to shove his hood over his shag of brown curls and pull the draw strings so he’s swallowed up by cotton. He just wants to go home and listen to Neil Young.

Miles hums as if he’s received some wise verse, and not another footnote of emotional withdrawal to stamp over Alex’ file. It might annoy him - the power Miles’ observation has over Alex’ situation - were it someone else. But Miles’ nature seems incapable of malicion. Some people are just good. Miles could easily be those people’s totem. 

“‘ow were yer morning?” He means community service - namely the desecration of murals more emotionally involved with Alex than his last acid trip. It isn’t even a service he’s providing anymore. He’s doing the devil’s work one paint streak at a time.

“I...yeah, good.” He murmurs, winding his hoodie string around his finger until the tip goes white and bloodless. 

When Miles doesn’t immediately grasp the silence, Alex lifts his eyes, his cheeks heating when he catches Miles’ eyes on his hands. He smiles patiently at Alex. 

The boy clears his throat and wipes his sweaty palms over his thighs, reminding himself what an unresponsive report means for him. He can’t break parole in his first month. 

“I...er, am enjoyin’ it.” He could laugh at how robotic it comes out, but he was too close to crying in the bathroom to summon the shift. Though oddly, when he does lift his eyes once more, catching Miles’ expectantly lifted brows and smirking lip, he does manage a chesty giggle. Looking away, he grins at his ratty converse crossed over his jeans which he really should replace. Miles’ smile is a miracle. 

“Yeh know,” Miles smiles, leaning back in his seat in a way that has Alex wondering what he was like in school. “I’m not gonna bite, yeah?” 

Alex huffs, “realleh?” It’s out there before his reserved nature can smother it, but Miles seems pleased by his out-of-turn step.

Alex respects that the lad doesn’t immediately try to sell the whole ‘it’s by job to care about you’ line - he’s heard that one enough for one lifetime. Instead Miles hums to himself thinkingly, scratching the back of his head, which just has Alex fantasizing about when that shaven scalp needs it’s monthly clipper - and how lovely the thought is of his own hands dragging an electric razor down that perfect noggin. 

“M’not as intimidating as I look.” In unison, they both glance down at his tie which is crossed by rainbow stripes. Miles snorts out a laugh. “Aye, I know. ‘ard to believe, reyt?” 

Alex purses his lips around the smile daring to show, blinking down to the edge of Miles’ varnished, oaky desk. When he flicks his eyes upward, he finds himself following the motion of Miles flattening out his tie with slender fingers, still settling his grin. 

“Pride month.” Is all is Miles remarks, as if Alex had wondered aloud why such a grey suit had been paired with that marvelously gay tie. 

Alex files everything that the statement means away in his own personal Miles-file, nodding, swallowing tightly as his Probation Officer returns to just that; cradling a fountain tip pen between those delicate fingers as he opens Alex’ case and begins to gently, strategically pull him apart for the proceeding hour. 

By the end of the session Miles is scribbling out his personal number for Alex, tugging out the page of a textbook to warmly hand over. He said it was standard, and for Alex’ comfort, that he could take it or leave it. As if Alex would leave it. 

Alex listens to and answers Miles’ questions, eyes constantly seeking out the analog clock until eventually he’s dismissed. Slinking out of Miles’ office, having said enough but wishing he’d said more. 

**

When Alex gets home it’s darker, the sun’s last light creeping down his walls as he locks the front door, shrugging out of his jacket and kicking off his shoes anxiously. 

He fumbles his cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket, going to sit at the designated smoking airchair by a hinged window. She’s old and burgundy. 

Alex spends a while blowing plumes of smoke out the opened window, staring blankly down at the crawling city under him and wondering if he’d ever afford an apartment like this once his probation was over, and his Dad resumed cutting Alex off.   
He squeezes his eyes shut against the memories fanning out over his mind; the raid, the ambulance ride, the diced memories of his pumped stomach and the way he couldn’t for the life of him imagine what was in his system anymore. The courthouse and trail, the pitying jury and disappointment in his Father’s lined face, greeting him before a hug was wrapped around him from his Mother. _You’d be getting what you deserve if it weren’t for me,_ his father’s eyes had cursed, and in that moment, as the officer undid his cuffs, Alex didn’t know what he deserved. 

He squashes his cigarette out against the china tea-plate he’s using as an ashtray, setting it over the weird shelf he’d screwed into his wall a week ago. 

Standing, Alex surveys his flat. It’s nice, more than he imagined his Father would have sprung for after all said and done. Although it’s pretty clean - enough time on your hands has you doing unspeakably domestic things - there are barely any notes of furniture. 

He’s got the smoking armchair from Salvos which looks comically out of place here, the cushy couch which came with the place, and a low to the ground coffee table Matthew from Group gave him. It just sits in the center of the room like a swollen thumb.

Alex decides to sleep, it’s seven at night and he hasn’t eaten but he just wants to be asleep. So the lad makes the short walk down the hall which knows no picture frames or guest-room doors, until he reaches his bedroom threshold, leaving it open and pulling off his jeans.

He rolls under the covers and lets his blinds shoot streetlight stripes over him. The apartment is quiet, a dog barks somewhere and Alex wishes he had a TV. 

**

Aside from community service dates, his piss tests, his appointments with Miles and Group, Alex doesn’t do much. 

He stays home mostly, watching Netflix on his phone in lieu of a television, even slumps into the local library often enough that the lady there has offered up a library card numerous times. He occasionally snags himself a bottle of bourbon from the corner and gets pissed in front of his floor to ceiling windows, usually alone unless Matt comes around. Waiting for when his account tops up once a month. 

He kind of hates this. Nearly every line of dialog in this life which feels more like a buffer between now and the next time he fucks up. 

**

On Tuesday, as per his pledge, Alex turns up for Group. 

The hall downtown, across from a skate park where he’d kissed his first enabler, is a quaint mix of lopsided bunting, the stereotypical ring of plastic seats and free, shitty coffee. 

He’s early enough that he snags his usual spot, it’s not particularly close to the door because he knows he’s got nowhere worth running to when the questions and eyes fall on him. 

The usual assembly filters in, some as rough looking as Alex, some worse for wear or adorned in iron-pressed denial. It doesn’t really matter what one decides to call oneself at these things. They all shared a common theme of having fucked up pretty fucking bad. 

Alex kept to himself mostly, except for Matthew Helders: a recovering alcoholic with a sharp sense of humor and a smart mouth. 

When Matt takes his seat next to Alex they share their usual nod, the one that makes sure the other has survived the week in one piece. Sometimes he’ll have Matt over, but he’s feeling particularly miserable today, and decides against inviting him over, or cheering himself up. 

As the session commences and the guidance counselor with his gingery-gray goatee begins with God because of course he does, Alex’ mind begins playing over his usual toneless weekend. 

Perhaps that wasn’t accurate; he’d chanced an afternoon on Sunday at the park, laughed like a dick at a duck who’d horked down a piece of bread from his corner store sandwich. He’d drunk that night like it was New Years on his sofa, listening to a Ringo Star album and woken the following morning vomiting passionately. 

All in all, not his finest moment. But he’d known worse weekends. 

He’s grateful when the clock strikes 6PM and the counselor hasn’t set his clingy sight to him, nor the five just as hesitant people after him. He doubts he’ll be so lucky next week.

**

He’s pulling his jacket over his shoulders, slipping from the run-down community hall when Matthew hollars. 

“‘ey, Alex, alreyt?” The familiarity of Matthew's accent was what first opened the door to their friendship. Alex isn't all too sure how his first month would have fared without the other Southern lad, cracking jokes over other member’s denial-scowled expressions and snapping temperaments.

Alex turns to catch Matt following up behind him where he crosses the cracked walkway off the hall. Matt’s taller than him but broad like he was built to protect things. He seemed to Alex like a warped spirit-guide and he’d said as much one drunken night a few weeks back. 

“Aye, yerself?” 

They walk to Matt’s car where he’s parked a block down, power lines above, dark azure in the sky with sounds of the city sifting against clipped fences. 

Alex lights up a cigarette, pocketing his lighter and shares the wicked dependence with Matt as they walk, their proximity like that of lifelong siblings. 

“Nowt to report,” the older lad shrugs, huffing a smile through his drag, passing the cig back. “Took out tha’ book yeh were saying ‘bout,” he murmurs, zipping up his hoodie which flaps under a thick, burly coat. “Broke me phone, so... figured why not.” Matthew had demons of his own, and sometimes the bastards had him smash shit. Rarely faces, mostly phones. 

“Brave New World.” Alex humms, sticking the rolled tobacco between his lips to crack his knuckles out. 

“That’s the one.”

Alex nods, recalls having recommended the novel after Matt had creamed his jeans over some new sci-fi film. “And?” He prompts, smiling. “Thoughts, theories?” 

“It were…” Matt squints up at the evening sky, “it’s like,” he snorts on a chuckle, “the paralells are fucking wif me mind.” He laughs, squashing the cigarette under his foot when they reach his ebon El Camino. 

Alex grins down at his shoes, hearing Matt key his car open. “If one’s different, one’s bound to be lonely.” 

Matthew shoots Alex a look over the roof of the car. “C’mon, man, don’t be citing a book I haven’t fookin’ finished.” 

The car ride home is a welcome break from the bus. The scenery shifts from slum to posh to Alex’ clean-cut unit complex, the neighbourhood just barely edging on swank.

He rests his head against the open window frame, his hair blowing off his face for possibly the first time in months. Matthew puts on a song he vaguely recognises as Suck My Kiss, grinning into the breeze rushing by when Matthew can’t remember the words - _they bloody changed the lyrics, those fuckers!_ \- and misses his exit.

Alex’ license, not that he’d ever had a car, had been revoked along with most of what made people coin him an adult. He missed being able to weave out of situations from behind a wheel, but didn’t complain about the absence of it.

When they roll up to Alex’ place, he shares a few parting goofs with Matt, climbing out of the car and onto the curb, shutting the passenger door with a flourish.

“Oi, Turner.” Alex leans into the open window, gazing across the car’s interior, looking at Matt’s secure hand on the gearshift and then up to his affable face. 

“Call me if things get shit.” 

Alex smirks, shaking his head fondly. “And I you.” But Matt had a girl and a dog, he wouldn’t be calling Alex. 

Until next week, they say, parting before Alex is dragging himself upstairs and into a hot shower. It takes him a while to realise it’s cold, and by that time his dirty hair is still unwashed. He just ends up drying and dressing, ordering Thai and watching X Files on his phone until two. 

**

Wednesday, his next workday, is when things start falling apart again. 

Alex wakes in an antsy, heavy mood, halfmoon impressions of his nails cut into his palms, his heart gunning in his chest. 

He decides he can shower it off. He still doesn’t mess with his hair - at this point any form of self-care seems extreme - and then dresses. 

He makes the unfortunate mistake of catching his reflection on the way out; the rolling closet doors make it pretty unavoidable. Alex appears the same as yesterday but somehow he sees it today. Sees the absence drawing up his face and the way he could cry if he bothered to think about the last few years. 

It’s all there. The dropping out of highschool in his high cheekbones, the insistent boyfriend who’d winked a blue eye and offered a mild cut - there in his shallow cheeks, and in his eyes - the proceeding years of downing every ounce of his identity for a life of intermittent ecstasy. 

After soaking up fifteen minutes on the burgundy armchair, exhaling out the cold window with tobacco lacing his lungs and lips, he pockets his cigarettes and heads off. 

The bus ride is quick but he’s on edge, as if he were standing before the beginning of all this - when the police had first fished him out of his latest crash pad, when the sound of his heart monitor in the hospital pierced through him like a reminder that he was sober. Sober. Sober enough to hear his Father’s gruff voiced conversation with the doctor or cop outside, sober enough to hear his Mother’s hand-muffled crying. 

He almost misses his stop in his reminiscing, but doesn’t and blessedly turns up for work on time. 

It’s an hour in when he realises how hot the sun’s gotten, how his clothes are too tight, how he can’t feel his face. Alex makes a frustrated sound when the next paint layer still refuses to cover the juxtapose Alex wishes he didn’t _have_ to cover. He stares at it, someone’s breathing hard and he thinks it’s him but he can never be sure that he is breathing these days. 

Why can’t he do this? He’d be getting what he deserved if it weren’t for Dad. Why was he failing his second chance, why was even the fucking _paint_ conspiring to mame is security, why coudn’t he just do this? He should be able to do this, everyone else can do this. He’s still selfish, how can he be doing this? Feeling this. He’s ruining everything-

 _“Alex,_ wot is it, lad?” He hears Richard press into his mind, faintly catches him barking at the other second-chances to get back to work, and feels a water bottle handed to him. 

“Sorreh. Sorreh. I...m’sorreh.” It’s a mantra at this point, but he feels his senses returning and pulls his jumper back on - he supposes he’d taken it off at some point. He wraps his hand around the bottle but doesn’t really feel himself holding it.

He feels insane, his eyelids sting and his head hurts, he isn’t even hung over. 

“I think yeh better go home, yer no help like this, yeah?” It’s said lightly but it drills into Alex’ conscience. He nods his way out of the exchange and accepts the discharge for the assistance that it is. 

He crawls out of the alleyway they’ve spent the morning painting over, hails a bus and doesn’t get off at his stop.

**

Where he does get off Alex vaguely recognized as the seedy slums every sponsor he’s ever had has steered him away from. When really it’s simply another alcove, a corner in the big city fit for those searching for something at the bottom of a glass, or the circle of a hand.

He finds a bar that pours generously, orders a whiskey on ice and then another and then another. 

Eventually he’s following a burly, tattooed bloke out onto the floor, letting him get too close because he’s drowned his depth perception. 

He could call it a victory when Alex turns down a number of offers for good-time capsules, though when he lets a man who buys him a drink lead him into the bathrooms he’s met with something else to use as a mouthwash for his pain. 

He decides he’s an adult who can implode as he pleases. But feels himself reaching for a feeling of desirability, of wanting to feel precious but knows for certain this is the wrong route to finding it.

Regardless, the night bleeds into itself until he’s catching a night-bus home, leaning his head against the smoggy glass and looking down at his nails, really wishing he had red nail polish.

He gets home and throws up in the kitchen sink. It’s because he’s been cutting back that his gut’s kicking him on his ass. _This is what you get for your indecision, wanker._

Alex is amazed to find it’s only 1AM, he sets his phone over the bedside table - stomach churning at the sight of Miles’ phone number, folded by his ikea lamp - and pitches himself onto the bed, rolling over to his back to regard the ceiling. 

He’s bewildered he’d made it home in one piece, force of habit he guesses - seeing through the fog. 

Blinking up at the drywall, the city barks, and car horns act as white noise. He feels his eyes sting with a sheen of weakness, feels the tears stream down his temples and catch in the shells of his ears horridly. 

He grunts, sleeving off his tears. He’s still fully dressed, converse and all. He doesn’t think about why his throat hurts and falls asleep thinking about his Mother’s chicken broth. 

**

He wakes up throwing up on his side. Groaning between rasping coughs, Alex flips the lamp on because it’s 2:30AM and the contents of his stomach is now over his forearm.

The words _alcohol poisoning_ filter through his head like an I-told-you-so jingle, his anxiety spiking when he already hears the next humiliating call to his Father. He swallows the next wave of nausea and stumbles over to the en-suite where he hugs the toilet like an old friend. 

Gripping the porcelain, Alex spits out the next taste of bile when his gut settles and he’s only heaving on dry sobs, shaky fingers gripping something cold. 

“Mm- erh, hullo?” A groggy, albeit familiar voice rumbles in his ear, and Alex realises he’s holding his phone.

“H-hello...?” Alex croaks in a voice far too small to be his. Pulling the phone away to see who he’s dialed up, he frowns when he doesn’t recognise the number. But then he squeezes the slip of paper in his other hand. It’s Miles’ number.

 _“A-Alex?”_ Miles rasps incredulously, he hears shuffling.

“Miles.” Alex breathes like a prayer, the sound hitching in his throat.

“Yes, Alex, it - it’s Miles. Is everything- are you okay?” And just like that, it’s like he’s suddenly spread too thin and he feels it as his tissue-paper walls break down - crying like he can’t stop. He probably can’t. 

His sinuses burn and he’s caught by another swell of nausea when he sobs down to his gut, his stomach pinching up before he tastes his itinerary of bad decisions over the evening. 

“It hurts. I - I fucked it up, it hurts so _much.”_ He wheezes out, clutching his gut as his eyes cloud up, tear-heavy lashes dicing his view. 

“Alex, where- tell me, give me yer address, lad.” Miles presses, “tell me where yeh are, love.” He says softer, and Alex can hear more shuffling like clothes or blankets being shifted for Alex’ own stupid sake.

Alex slurs out his address, whining into the acoustic of his toilet bowl, his feet cold on the tile. When Miles tells him he’s calling an ambulance Alex starts panicking, certain his medical records would thread directly back to his one and only source of income - Dad. 

_“No,_ no, no ambulance, Miles. He’ll hate me, he-” Alex bites down on his lip, taking a breath. “He can’t see me like this.” 

Miles bargains not to call the ambulance if Alex stays put, but he has half a mind to believe he’ll show up, assess Alex’ drunk, hysteric state and call the paramedics. He might make Miles swear were he sober. As it stands, Alex stays on the line with Miles, listening to the lad’s words.

“I’m fucking, I. I’m so fucked, I’m so tired.” he whimpers, rubbing his eyes, staring at the eggshell shade of his bathroom wall. “I’m fucked, m’already dead, I’m...Miles,” his voice tapers down, his eyes blurring further as he stares at that off-white tile, exhausted beyond breath. 

When he comes to, having inadvertently passed out, his cheeks are in Miles’ hands- stinging slightly as if he’d been slapped awake. It does the job. Miles is saying Alex’ name and it wouldn’t be all that bad of an exit; Miles’ voice wrapped around his name, his slender fingers around Alex’ chin as he searches for signs of life in this damaged shuttle. 

Not bad at all. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
